If you’ve been following me on twitter, you’ve already been tipped off that I recently got an older MacBook Pro. Since it came with Mac OS installed, I decided I would give it a fair, 30-day trial before I move it to Linux. I’m about 3 weeks in, and I’m logging my thoughts publicly so you can hopefully see benefit.

What I’m NOT comparing

In a word: speed. This was a significant hardware upgrade from my last computer, so I’m not going to say anything how everything is so much faster, smoother blah blah because it would’ve been anyway and that’s not useful to you or anyone. Also, virtualization: I know that I can get X or Y if I just use VirtualBox. I’m going to ignore that here for simplicity.

Tools

Before I make stupid lists, I should note that I was working on an Ubuntu Karmic Koala, so I had all of the pre-packaged nice-ities that come with that.

Now, in no order whatsoever:

• Dock – Mac has a built-in dock, Linux has AWN and Gnome-Do Docky. IMO, Linux wins barely because you have more options for customization.
• Terminal – Both systems have a built-in terminal. I’m a bash user and that came with both. One part where Linux shines is that a lot more tools build themselves to be launched by the Terminal by default. For example, try typing “which firefox” in the Mac terminal. Nope.

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Last week, I wrote about why programmers should twitter. My article met with heavy criticism at DZone. Today, I intend to answer people’s doubts and try to approach the subject from a slightly different angle.

Not just small talk

A lot of people seem to think that Twitter is all about “sitting on patios” or “my MBP did these things”, and that’s understandable. There is a lot of generally useless stuff and a lot of people just use it for that. You don’t have to. You don’t have to follow anyone that only posts that and you certainly don’t have to tweet that way. It is what you make of it.
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I recently read a poll about why people use twitter. It was very interesting seeing the reasons people gave and I’d like to share my thoughts on why you should, too.

You might be laughing to yourself if you already do tweet, but you’d be surprised at how many don’t.

Network with other programmers

I’ve said before that networking is one of the best things you can do for your career. Not only can networking help you find a job, but I’ve found that programmers are generally very helpful and accessible on twitter. Programmers love it when you ask about a project they are involved with. Call it an ego thing.

One other really cool networking use for twitter: having something to talk about when you meet at JUGs or conferences. A follow request is an instant icebreaker and gets the networking process started for you.
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